Optically transparent antennas for small satellites

In this thesis the placement of antennas on a small satellite's solar cell is studied. The placement of antennas is carefully investigated by minimizing the total solar cell's power harvesting area covered by a patch antenna. Transparent antennas can potentially improve the usage of the covered area by allowing a percentage of incident solar light through. This work explores the feasibility of antennas made out of transparent oxides (TCOs) and co-planar electromagnetically coupled feeds that can be placed on solar cells. TCOs are reviewed and simplified in order to better understand material properties on antenna design. Skin depth effects are studied in detail and an empirical equation is introduced to better model skin effects resultant from thin film TCO depositions. In the second part of the thesis coupled feeds for see-through meshed antennas are studied. Properties such as antenna gain, co-polarization, efficiency and cross-polarization are discussed.